Fabric and Paper Birds

Just found yet another cool shop on Etsy. Cotton Bird Designs makes adorable little birds out of paper and fabric and also makes fabric flowers among other things. These sweet little things are supposed to be wedding cake toppers, but they are so cute I would just put them all over the house.

Photo Credits: Cotton Bird Designs

Etsy Shop: Cotton Bird Designs 
Found via: 100 Layer Cake

EKOKOOK Eco Kitchen

The Ekokook kitchen from Faltazi is just about the smartest and coolest thing I've seen as far as kitchens go. It's compact, environmentally responsible, and extremely practical.

The Ekokook has everything you need in a kitchen: a cooktop, a fridge, recycling bins, compost, dry storage, sink, water recycling, EVERYTHING for a healthy and eco conscious lifestyle. Best of all it takes up much less space than a traditional kitchen with all these things. The design cleverly separates the area into two parts, one side for food preparation and the other side for waste disposal, so you don't have to keep walking around space while doing something.

Overview of food preparation side

Alright, going over the cool points from left to right. In the cooking section you have a steam oven on the bottom, and on the counter you have a hot-plate, a wok, and a gas burner. On the top there's an extractor hood with room for cookbooks on top (I told you they have everything). Storage area is next with room for pots, pans and silverware on the bottom, a cutting board on the counter, and hanging storage for more pots and pans. More storage on top with a timer in front, and next to it are two ultraponics pots (for growing fresh herbs and stuff). Back on the bottom are the dry food storage bins and the cold storage all the way on the right. The cool thing about the Ekokook refrigerator is that it's totally compartmentalized so you only have to open a small door to an isolated compartment to get what you want, saving huge amounts of energy spent on refrigeration. Last on top is the dry storage for bulk items like grains and beans and seeds.

Now the waste-management side is the really amazing part. The Ekokook makes it easy to greatly reduce the amount of trash thrown out. It's crazy how much trash I generate when cooking.

Overview of waste processing side

So, left to right again. The solid waste micro-plant manages your recyclable materials and has a bin for everything else that's not recyclable, but the cool thing is the space saving abilities of this little kitchen. For glass bottles, you place them in the bin, where they are broken as they fall down. The paper compartment shreds then compacts the paper into blocks. Lastly aluminum cans and plastic bottles are crushed when going into the bin. The micro-plant for liquid wastes allows you to save water from washing vegetables into pitchers for watering your herbs in the ultraponic pots above or dispose of other waste water. The organic waste micro-plant is ingenious and I can't do it justice in a description, you have to watch the video. All the way on the right is the compartmentalized dishwasher which saves water and electricity.

Photo and video credits: Faltazi Ekokook
Found via: Inhabitat

Lugano, Switzerland

Church and cemetary in the community of Morcote, in Lugano, and the view of the lake after climbing like 209658213957 steps. No cars C:

View of the Lake of Lugano and the mountains from a hill atop the enclave of Campione d'Italia.

Caprino (Little Goat!)

Cute village of Caprino on the Lake of Lugano, in Switzerland, and a teeny frog! You can only get to the village by boat or by walking through the forest along the lake. It's so relaxing and quiet since there are no cars. The houses are really nice, they all have wine cellars on the bottom and the living area is on the second floor, and all have an amazing view of the lake.

Verzasca Valley, Switzerland

The Verzasca Dam is a stomach-churning 220 meters (722 ft.) high, I couldn't even get close to the edge! It was the same dam in Goldeneye that Bond bungee jumps off of. Brave tourists can do the jump. The Roman Bridge (Ponte dei Salti) in Lavertezzo and the beautiful Verzasca River.

Bright WeSC earbuds!

I am fanatic about my iPod, I rarely leave home without it. I'm not such a fan of my plain white earbuds though... they're just so boring. My cute green iPod needs a friend and I have found the perfect match.

Theeeese!

-sigh- Aren't these earbuds from WeSC magnificent? The colors are so lovely and they're small so you don't have this giant thing hanging out of your ear and falling out. Best of all they're on sale for $26 each at Karmaloop right now.

Some extra info for those of you who understand what this means:

unisex in-ear headphones

• type: 10mm power drivers

• 1kHz sensitivity: 102 dB

• impedance: 32 Ohms

• frequence range: 20-20 001 Hz

• plug: gold-plated 3,5mm stereo

• cord: 1,25m + 1,0m extension, PVC cord

• weight: 20g

Just one problem. What color?!?

Image credits: Karmaloop

Vegetarian Chili

I have the most amazing vegetarian chili recipe. It is so delicious that you will not miss the meat at all, trust me.

I love love love chili, but when I stopped eating meat for almost a year, I also stopped eating chili, for a while. Then I discovered this incredible recipe from Williams-Sonoma (love them too) and not only did I enjoy chili again, I made it myself :D

This is MY chili recipe though, and it'll go into my "family recipes" book when I become old and young'uns start asking me how to cook things.

Here it is. Enjoy it. I'm not posting any pictures because pictures of my food always make it look really unappetizing.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups dried red kidney beans
1/3 cup olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2-3 fresh jalapeño peppers, seeded and minced
4 large cloves of garlic, minced
6 tbsp (1 oz./ 30 g.) chili powder
2 1/2 tbsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 cans (28 oz./875 g) crushed plum tomatoes
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup monterey jack cheese, shredded
fresh cilantro leaves for garnish (optional)


PREP
Pick over the beans and discard any damaged beans and stones. Rinse the beans. Place in a bowl and add water to cover generously. Let stand for about 3 hours. Drain the beans and set aside.

In a large, heavy saucepan over low heat, warm the olive oil. Add the onions and chili peppers and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic, chili powder, cumin, cayenne and oregano and sauté, stirring, for 2 minutes more. Add the beans, tomatoes and water to cover by 3 inches. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, uncovered, until the beans are very tender and have begun to fall apart, 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Add water if the beans begin to dry out but are not yet cooked.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle into warmed bowls, sprinkle with the cheese and cilantro and serve immediately.

Serves 6

Note: If you don't want to spend 3 hours cooking beans, 2 cans of kidney beans also works, you just have to cook them for a few minutes until they are hot.

Adapted from: Williams-Sonoma The Best of the Kitchen Library: Vegetarian